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 THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 818, April 19, 2015 The difference between libertarianism and every other social or political philosophy is its answer to the question "Who owns your life?" Everything else flows naturally from the answer to that question.
Attribute to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise You have long heard that Necessity is the Mother of invention. You are about to learn; if you did not already know—that Necessity has another child. It's name is Tyranny. It began as one of those usual hectic mornings getting off to work one morning where I managed to make it in time by dropping stuff like an Air Force mission drops stops when they are running out of crew duty day—the maximum hours their pilots are allowed to fly in peace time. In my case it was to forgo the greenhouse and bypass the bank and just get my insurance paid instead. And put cashing a check on hold and looked up my direct deposit amount before clocking in. As for the day at work it was not too busy. Just long. And it literally dragged the last 4 hours. And on top of that—one of my fellow ER techs dropped a proverbial bomb on me. She asked if I had gotten my clearances done? And I was like clueless; sort of like when I've been running from task to task or call light to call light and one of the nurses asks—"Did you know about the EKG and blood work in room 6"? Duh—uh! Clearances?!? It sounded kind of deadly serious and official; like getting vetted for a security clearance for the military or government and the latter is involved. Apparently it's because of the Sandusky scandal at Penn State ; health care workers, teachers, bus drivers and anyone else who might have access to children now needs 3 separate background checks from the FBI, State and local police records. And fingerprinted. And we have to foot the bill. Sounds like fascism to me but no big deal to many I talk to. People look at me like I'm a 3 headed monster from outer space for complaining that it's Orwellian. Some in classic Sheeple flashion argue it's necessary because people do bad things. If that does not make the case for that William Pitt quote taped on my locker—I don't know what is! Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
This is definitely a quote worth repeating because there seems to be no end to the wellspring of urgent crises, or burning issues for alarmists of all stripes to exploit in order to ram through one freedom destroying or privacy eroding agenda after another. The co-worker who enlightened me to this wonderful bit of news—is among the few who seem to get it; that the assumption that everyone is a potential terrorist, criminal or child molester until proven otherwise—is not a good thing. Could it have something to do with her belonging to a certain group of hyphenated—Americans that often gets profiled or stereotyped as potential lawbreakers because of their race? I never asked but I could feel the vibe. And so there you have it. Because everyone has to overreact to someone who did something bad and the politicians had to grandstand on it to pad their resumes for being tough on crime or keeping the children safe—because of the pedophile from Penn State—everyone else must be punished and if you disagree then you are just as bad as the one or ones who commit such crimes. And ditto for anyone who complains about being fondled and groped by the TSA going through airport security. Or doesn't want to give up their exotic pets because they might carry a disease or get released to become an invasive species by others less responsible. Or someone who doesn't want to give up their guns because someone else might go on a shooting spree. Or the guns might end up getting stolen and smuggled across the border to cause murder and mayhem in Mexico. If you disagree—you are demonized for being socially irresponsible for not wanting to submit and sacrifice for the common good. The process must be completed by July and it's mandatory for keeping our jobs. That really put a damper on my week. No sooner than getting tax time off my chest—Big Brother strikes again! I keep thinking about the words of Younger Pitt. Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
Necessity really is the plea for virtually every infringement by people with pet issues who want laws and regulations to address them and same for the officials charged with enforcement. It's not about stopping anyone from doing harm—anymore than Obama Care was about providing affordable access to doctors or the Patriot Act and the War on Terror being about preventing another 9/11—it's about the acquisition and accumulation of power and revenue streams and patronage in the way of civil service jobs. These things also make potent weapons for government officials to stifle dissent and punish political enemies brazen enough to stand up to the System. The Law is an Ass and it's also a weapon. And they don't even have to charge anyone with an actual crime or even float the allegation of treason or pedophilia—in the case of a background check that is mandatory for maintaining employment; all that is necessary to ruin someone's life is to slow walk the paperwork or loose it in the shuffle and make the applicant miss the deadline. And accountability for job performance is hardly an issue with civil servants who belong to public sector unions. It's like that Billy Joel song: Running on Ice with the lyrics about "a Rat Race" & "a system that a civil servant dominates". But I think the cranky populists of pop culture from Joel & Springsteen going back to Woody Guthrie in the Depression Era often don't realize they are enabling their worst enemies in putting down private wealth and other knee jerk things populists do. Knee jerk things. Without a shadow of doubt that was the reason the Founders believed in deliberation. Too many laws get passed in the heat of the moment. Like the Patriot Act in the wake of 9/11. Or Obama Care that was rushed through with many legislators hardly taking time to read the fine print—because it was so much easier to pass the bill to see what was in it, plus they wanted to get it passed before anyone could see what was in it. And there's climate change which must be addressed with urgency because we cannot afford to delay—least new data, like a series of frigid winters—that conflicts with the predictions—might emerge. Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
Like the VHS scare in the Great Lakes which turned out to be a convenient excuse for authorities in Wisconsin to prohibit the transportation of live fish within the state. It was hailed as pretty much a doomsday virus that would decimate fish populations. Later it was found out that it was nothing really new under the sun—fish die offs from Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia have happened before. The outbreaks are usually the result of stress from bad water conditions and other environmental factors that involve a virus that may have always been around. Ray was really bugging about it this week along with the policies of the previous administration in the progressive snake pit of Madison. "The Doyle DNR crushed pretty much everything in the outdoors here.... My opinion is they threw us bones with dove and turkey hunts while raising the cost of everything, regulating everything more, and when the VHS hit it was their Christmas ; they could shut down so many things they did not like for who knows what reason like bait collecting, and moving live fish". As the Progs might like to say: A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste! Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
Necessity is always the plea! Ray hopes Scott Walker might yet turn things around in Wisconsin—but the problem with Scott Walker—is that he is just another storm for the bureaucracy to weather like it was with Reagan. When I was at Andrews—I remember when Maryland was closing parks because of budget cuts. Much of that was probably political theater. As were the raids that went after pet shops and people like my old friend Chuck for selling native snakes—even albino Corns which were obviously captive bred. The DNR in that state decided to stage some dramatic busts in order to make the case that reptile collectors were out of control and pillaging the wildlife because of underfunding the agency. Only it backfired and resulted in the legalization of captive breeding because of a massive pushback by the hobbyist community. Also after 8 years of Reagan and about two years of the first Bush Presidency—radical environmentalism had kind of fallen out of fashion. The DNR and other agencies along with environmentalists themselves started playing nice and going along with the spirit of the times which was all about privatization and market incentives but were probably just counting the days until the country got tired of unbridled cowboy capitalism and the centrist Sheeple had forgotten about the mess and malaise of the 60s and 70s and the pendulum swung back again. The radical core were quick to show their true fascistic conformist colors again once Bill Clinton got into office. Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
And that continued on into the next Bush Era. Part of the problem was preoccupation with the wars that just let everything else run on autopilot. And the bureaucracies are generally set up to advance the agenda over the long haul regardless which party is in power. The rotten laws in Pennsylvania were implemented in 07—but conceived several years before the democrat—Ed Rendel got elected to the State House. It was Bush/ Cheney in Washington at the time and the Feds were still hard at work hatching plenty of freedom crushing schemes of their own. In Harrisburg, the old school Wise Use / Conservation Era Bucket Heads never liked the idea of us having reptiles & amphibians, or native fishes as pets because it was an unconventional use of a natural resource. And they didn't approve of commercialization . The new school Deep Ecology people were even worse—they just plain don't want anyone to keep anything or even be in the presence of a native herptile! When the Herpetology & Endangered Species Coordinator became a "Biodiversity Coordinator" I knew we were in big trouble! That was the handwriting on the wall that told me that the days of our relative freedom were numbered in a society where everyone is assumed to be a potential lawbreaker, terrorist, environmental destroyer or pedophile—guilty until proven otherwise. Ain't this a wonderful country?
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